Fox's New Slogan Tacitly Admits Its Conservative Bias

During The O'Reilly Factor tonight, there was a Fox News promo I've not seen before. The brief video is hard to describe but the audio is, "Fox News: The balance." Not "fair and balanced," but "the balance." This is pretty much exactly what Fox News chief Roger Ailes said in an interview earlier this week and it also echoes the comments of Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. In all three cases, the suggestion is that Fox News "balances" the so-called liberal media. In other words, it's a tacit admission of FNC's conservative mindset.

The "balancing out liberal media" framing was more explicitly stated in longer statements by Ailes and Wallace.

In an interview with Jon Stewart on June 19, 2011, Wallace defended Fox News - not by arguing its fairness and balance but by likening it to some kind of antidote to liberal media. He said, "I think we’re the counterweight… I think that they have a liberal agenda and I think we tell the other side of the story.” As I wrote then, Wallace never said Fox tells the full, fair and balanced story, but, rather, the “other side.” That implies advocacy, does it not?

Earlier this week, Ailes defended Fox against accusations of bias with something very similar: “Every other network has given all their shows to liberals. We are the balance.” Once again, the suggestion is that Fox is the opposite of a network that has "given all their shows to liberals." Or to put it another way, a network that has given all its shows to conservatives.

Now comes the TV promo suggesting the same thing.

By the way, I checked out FoxNews.com and found the same old "fair and balanced" slogan there as usual. Will it remain?